The following discussion is about p.29-p.44
1. Define these terms on your own words.
Phonemic Awareness: means ability to recognize spoken language and handle it. For the ability, language learners need to understand that spoken words are made up of sounds that can be separated. It’s an important facilitative factor for reading. This is because some for the theory believe that children acquire language in this way; listening to other people, speaking out, and reading and writing. Also, it’s considered the pre-level of Phonics. Teachers would more focus on discriminate different sounds than articulate them.
Word attack skills: it’s kind of decoding skills because learners would convert graphic symbols that they recognize into intelligible language. In the process, languages symbols seem not to be meaningful are understood as meaningful units. The following shows some examples of word attack skills.
Recognizing syllable patterns
Recognizing symbols for consonant sounds
Recognizing symbols for vowel sounds
Recognizing symbols for tone and other suprasegmental features
Recognizing capital letters (upper case) and knowing when to use them
Recognizing punctuation and how it affects reading for meaning and expression
Recognizing the use of space to mark word breaks and paragraphs
Using the above skills simultaneously with comprehension and critical reading skills
Item learning: is a skill to develop somewhat high frequency grammatical items. Because they come up in a higher frequency, if learners store them based on some rules, the complex processing time would be so long. Also, there is just small number of them. Therefore, in order to make the process efficiently, your mind tends to remember the items as ready-made items.
System learning: is a skill to develop rather low frequency items in learners’ mind. Since there are too many of them to be stored as individual ready-made items, instead, they are put in learners’ cognition system based on certain linguistic rules.
Four approaches to spelling improvement
-Meaning-focused input: the more text language learners are exposed to, the more efficiently they develop the ability to spell words. (E.g. written production)
-Meaning-focused output: learners practice spelling words when produce language on their own. (E.g. copying, delayed copying, and read and write from memory)
-Language-focused learning: is a deliberate attention to spelling. Korean English teachers usually give learners the language-focused training such as covering and retrieving and regular correspondences and rules.
-Fluency development: can be achieved in timed writing because it lets learners write what they want to say automatically. By the fluency training, learners can not only try new words in context but also develop spontaneous writing skill.
2. Discuss all the ways of recognizing letters and words that you have read in this chapter and you have known from your experience.
According to the textbook, there is a process of recognizing letters and words; learning letter shapes, phonemic awareness, understanding writing conventions. One typical method stimulates the process is “phonics,” which is an intended language course focusing on the correspondences between sounds and spelling (written letters). Phonics can be processed in several ways;
-Isolated words or words in texts
-Individual and Class
-Word attack skills
Some strategies that I’ve tried are not that much different from ones in the textbook. Phonics was my first way to learn English. At that time, I got so bored and was likely to skip my homework that my private tutor-from Yoon’s teacher-assigned to me. The problem is that I didn’t know why I had to do what I had already known incidentally. In other words, it was meaningless for me. The worse is that I almost lost my interest in learning English. However, I had to improve my reading skill since I recognized that my reading too poor to study middle school English textbook. So, what I chose is memorize all the text in textbook and reading the text repeatedly. That worked very well for me because the strategy was good for my reading skill as well as my writing skill. When I was studying for University entrance exam, I had another difficult time in English reading section. Memorizing the whole paragraph took so long time that I couldn’t do the same thing every time. Instead, I started cutting the whole sentence into small units and just read what I didn’t understand. Recently, I started learning vocabulary with word book. I just look at the words at the first time, then learn the word use in the given sentences include the vocabulary.
3. Discuss all the ways of spelling letters and words that you have read in this chapter and you have known from your experience.
I found some ways of spelling letters and words in the textbook; meaning-focused Input(receptive exposure), Meaning-focused Output(copying, delayed copying, read and write from memory, dictation, guided writing, writing with a dictionary, free writing), Language-focused learning(Cover and Retrieve, using analogies, using word parts-roots, pronouncing the word, visualizing, test-dictation, noticing pattern), and fluency development(timed writing). I already discussed those four aspects in the first question.
As long as I remember, dictation was my first try to memorize spelling. When teachers pronounced vocabulary that he or she asked me to learn before, I dictated the words. When studying independently, I chose “cover and retrieve” method without listening to others because I didn’t have anyone assist my spelling training. When I was going to middle and high school, I just memorize whole things in the textbook. Actually, it was a very tough task for me and took very long time. I could figure out specific language use in the context though. There is no doubt that my writing skill was getting better as well.
4. Many English teachers in Korea have their students spend much time practicing phonics (in case of young learners) and memorizing words. Explain the strengths and weaknesses of this instruction from the knowledge that you have built through this chapter.
Simply stated, supporters of the whole language approach think children's literature, writing activities and communication activities can be used across the curriculum to teach reading; backers of phonics instruction insist that a direct, sequential mode of teaching enables students to master reading in an organized way.
Emerging from the conflict over whole language and phonics is the increasingly widespread view that each approach has a different but potentially complementary role to play in the effective teaching of reading. Many educators now look for ways to use phonics as part of whole language instruction, striving to teach meaningful phonics in the context of literature.
In a recent International Reading Association (IRA) position statement -- a statement that shocked many in the reading community who, rightly or wrongly, had seen the IRA as a bastion of the whole language movement -- the organization took a stance supporting phonics within a whole-language program. In "The Role of Phonics in Reading Instruction," the IRA maintains that:
· "The teaching of phonics is an important aspect of beginning reading instruction.
· Classroom teachers in the primary grades do value and do teach phonics as a part of their reading programs.
· Phonics instruction, to be effective in promoting independence in reading, must be embedded in the context of a total reading/language arts program."
"Early, systematic, explicit phonics instruction is an essential part, but only part, of a balanced, comprehensive reading program," maintains John J. Pikulski, IRA President. The organization's position is that no one approach to teaching reading and writing is best for every child.
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“Fluent, accurate decoding is a hallmark of skilled reading. Automatic word recognition, which is dependent on phonic knowledge, allows the reader to attend to meaning,” Moates, L.(1988) Teaching Decoding American Educator, 1998
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Critics point out that the reading/practice materials aren't very interesting, "See Spot run. Run Spot run. Spot runs fast." It is a contrived atmosphere of reading practice using the phonic rules.
Here's the bigger problem: children who struggle in reading memorize phonic rules, and then are unable to apply phonic rules to connected print. To remedy this problem, two things must happen:
Only the most important phonic rules should be taught in the least complicated manner possible. For example, in teaching vowel sounds, it is distracting to talk about "short versus long" vowels. Instead, a child should be taught the short vowel sounds first. Then when a child encounters a long vowel as in the word find, tell him, "That vowel says its own name."
Phonics must be taught in a way that allows these children to immediately practice phonic information in real stories. Every time a child is taught new phonic information, he should be given a short reading selection that highlights the phonic rule. Completing a skill sheet is good, but even better is to help the child practice applying the phonic skill to connected print.
A child cannot learn to read without proper knowledge in phonics. It is the foundation for success in reading. She will succeed to read if she knows phonics.
